The Westward Movement: The Colonies and the Republic West of the Alleghanies, 1763-1798. with Full Cartographical Illustrations from Contemporary Sources

Excerpt

The public and secret treaties of 1763 left France without a foothold on the American main. By the terms of the Peace of Paris, the Bourbon flag fluttered in the islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon. The suspicion of what lay beyond these little fishing stations at the entrance of the Gulf of St. Lawrence had two centuries and a half before prompted the ambition of France to penetrate the continent by the great river of Canada. A century later her pioneers, following that current to its upper sources, had passed on to the Mississippi, which forms the central artery of the continent. Here, a third of the way across the land's broad expanse, and not suspecting the greater distance beyond, France had nurtured the hope of ascending the western afflnents of that parent stream, till she had compassed, with her survey and jurisdiction, a greater France, stretching from the Alleglianies to the South Sea. This expectation had been dashed. Where she had comited upon Seeing her royal standard shadowing soil and native alike, her flag was now seen drooping at a few posts beyond the Mississippi, and awaiting the demands of Spain to lower it.

During the period which followed the Treaty of Ryswick (1697), a scheme had often been broached among the English, but had never prospered, which looked to thwarting the policy of France in the Great Valley. This was to unite England and Spain in a movement to drive the French from the continent, and divide the northern parts of the New World between their respective crowns. This conjunction had now come to pass, but not by any such international pact.